Fortnite Settings - How to improve performance with these PS4, Xbox and PC best settings recommendations

Fortnite Settings allow you to tinker with visuals to prioritize graphical quality or smoother performance, based on your preferences.

For a competitive multiplayer game like Fortnite, performance is king. Though the game is well optimised, there are a few settings widely recommended to turn off to give you easy performance benefits.

There are also settings - from changing controller sensitivity to key bindings - which we don't touch upon in this article. Both are subjective to each player, and it's worth messing around with what you find usable. Instead, we'll be focusing on performance gains.

How to change Settings in Fortnite

Select the Cog to jump to the Settings.

Getting to the Settings page in Fortnite, whether on PC, Xbox or PlayStation, is fairly straightforward.

On PC, go to the lobby - which is the screen where you can decide the type of match you want to play, or jump into Challenges and so forth - then click the sandwich icon in the upper right corner of the screen to bring up extra settings.

On PS4 or Xbox One, this is much the same. Pressing the the Options / Menu button (the right most of the 'middle' buttons) in the lobby will bring up a variety of settings.

From there, select the Cog button, as highlighted in yellow, to jump into the Settings page.

Best PC Fortnite Settings recommendations for better performance

Optimising Fortnite for improved performance isn't an exact science as every player's hardware set up is different - Textures and Effects for example could be increased if you have beefier computer - though the likes of disabled Shadows and Motion Blur are widely suggested things to disabled regardless of your setup.

If you're unsure, it's recommended turning everything up to the max or lowest settings and turning Show FPS on, then adjusting individual settings based on what you'd like - such as texture quality - to get the best possible balance of visuals and performance.

Here are the Fortnite settings we'd recommend on PC:

Option

Recommended Setting

Window Mode

WindowedFullScreen

Display resolution

1080p

Frame Rate Limit

60 FPS

View Distance

Epic

Shadows

Off

Anti-Aliasing

Off

Textures

Low / Medium

Effects

Low / Medium

Post Processing

Low

Vsync

Off

Motion Blur

Off

Show FPS

Off / On

Here's what each setting means in further detail:

Window Mode: This can allow you to interact with other windows easier, so you can minimise the game to check something else. Might not be as useful on a dual-screen set-up, and as the game explains, "in full screen we can save memory and render slightly faster".

Frame Rate Limit: This caps the game's performance at a certain frame rate, such as 60 FPS or 120 FPS. If it's something in-between these two, then the varying performance can be off-putting, so many prefer to keep things at 60 FPS.

Quality: This is a quick way to set all the below settings at once. We'd recommend ignoring this and tinkering with graphics settings individually.

View Distance: The higher this is, the more you can see. Turning this down can give you a performance advantage, but only on slower devices, and in a game where seeing as much as possible is ideal, we'd recommend setting this as high as possible.

Shadows: This is a visual-only benefit that can also "allow better depth perception", according to the game. Unless you have a fast graphics card, turning this down is highly recommended for the performance benefits it brings.

Anti-Aliasing: The higher this is, the smoother visuals will be, reducing 'jaggied' edges. This can see a hit on performance, so reducing or turning off can see the game run smoother.

Textures: These "give flat objects a more detailed appearance", according to the game. The higher it is, the better objects will look, but doing so requires a more powerful graphics card. Depending on your set up, you could have this on medium or high without a significant impact on performance.

Effects: These give more detail in certain superfluous scenarios, such as water. This can be more taxing than most settings changes -
such as textures - so it's recommended you reduce this unless you have a powerful graphics card.

Post Processing: With this enabled, visuals are processed further after the scene is rendered, improving quality to make it a little kinder to the eyes. This imgur gallery shows some before and after shots, with post processing making images a little softer. Overall, this is an optional setting that is taxing on your computer, so we recommend turning it down as much as possible.

Vsync: Turning this on ensures a full frame is rendered on screen, so no screen tearing takes place. However, doing so will cause an performance hit on your machine as it works harder to make sure a full image is always displayed, so turning it off is recommended - giving you a higher frame rates and input response.

Motion blur: Turning it on adds a blur effect when moving. It's a visual setting that some players enjoy, but for a competitive game, it can make things harder to see when moving at speed. Turning it off is recommended.

Show FPS: This is useful if you want to see if any of the above has any effect on performance. Want to see if setting Texture to medium changes the frame rate? Enable this, have a match, and see if it veers from your target of say, 60 FPS. If so, change the setting and try again.

Best PS4 and Xbox Fortnite Settings recommendations

On consoles, the settings are thankfully very simple. The main option you are looking for is underneath the controller sensitivity options (the blue gauges), to the option saying '60 FPS'.

When it's on, "smooth gameplay over visual quality" is prioritized. This means the game will run faster and closer to the 60 frames-per-second target - which is the golden standard for multiplayer games - rather than producing better performance.

There's a variety of other non-performance settings you should consider here, too, such as a Streamer mode that disables certain heads-up display elements to help prevent giving away your position for other players who might be watching.

Fortnite system requirements on PC

Though Fortnite is well optimised - enough so to run on mobile devices - there are system requirements to consider for low end PCs:

Minimum System Requirements

Recommended System Requirements

Nvidia GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870 equivalent DX11 GPU; 2 GB VRAM

Intel HD 4000

Core i5 2.8 Ghz

Core i3 2.4 Ghz

8 GB RAM

4 GB RAM

Windows 7/8/10 64-bit

Windows 7/8/10 64-bit

As mentioned earlier, in summary, settings changes aren't an exact science since everyone's PC is different. Though some settings are recommended to turn off or low regardless of your machine, it's worth experimenting with the various individual options to provide the best balance of performance and visual quality.